Growing Potatoes in the Home Vegetable Garden

Gardeners who grow their own potato crops find that this food staple tastes best when it’s harvested fresh from the garden. Home grown potatoes are guaranteed organic, and healthy. After harvesting pound after pound over the season, it becomes easy to see the grocery savings, as well.

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) thrive in cool weather, full sun, and fertile, well-drained soil. They prefer the soil to be on the acidic side, which helps prevent a disease called “scabs”. Adding soil amendments every so often is always a good idea; however, use compost or composted manure. Gardeners should avoid straight manure because this encourages scabs.

Gardeners can start collecting potato recipes now because in a ten square-foot garden, one can expect to harvest eighty pounds of potatoes! If they are planted in the warmer growing zones in March, the potatoes will be ready for a Fourth of July salad.

The Nutritional Value of Potatoes

Potatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C and have traces of A, B and P, as well. The minerals they contain include calcium, iron, and phosphorus. Potatoes are about 17% starch – one of the best natural resources for starch and water makes up 70 – 80% of this root crop.

Growing Potatoes

The first thing the gardener will want to purchase is certified disease-free seed potatoes. Using potatoes purchased at a local grocery store is discouraged as they’re not certified disease-free. There’s a vast assortment of seed catalogs available that outline potato varieties for home gardeners. Seed potatoes are usually available at local nurseries, as well. This is one of the best ways to obtain seed as the varieties stocked will be the varieties that do well in that particular growing zone.

The Easiest Way to Plant Potatoes

While potato seeds may be planted whole, usually they are cut into chunks called ‚”sets'”. When you cut the chunk, each piece should have 2-3 eyes on it. Before planting the sets, many gardeners let them air out a day or two (“chitting”) in a dry place so the freshly cut areas can dry up a bit. When planting the sets, the cut side should face-down into the soil. Potatoes should be planted in full sun; that’s an area that gets at least 8 hours of sun per day. You’ll want to plant them in rows that are 3 feet apart.

The gardener digs small holes about 6 – 10 inches apart from one another and then plants the sets about 4″ under the soil. As the plants grow, soil, straw or leaves should be hilled up around the growing stems. The tubers need to stay covered to avoid exposure to the sun.

Potatoes that are exposed to the sun may develop “solanine” (a slightly toxic alkaloid). Hilling the plants (mounding the dirt up into a little ‘hill’) until there’s only a little bit of the plant still sticking out encourages tuber growth. Potatoes are so easy to grow that they can be planted in bags, boxes, baskets, and tire stacks.

Best Time to Plant Potatoes

The right time to plant potatoes anticipating a mid-summer harvest is in the early spring. If potatoes are planted in mid-May to mid-June the gardener will get a second harvest and a third planting can be done mid-July for a spring harvest if the climate is fairly mild.

Harvesting Potatoes

The gardener should stop hilling soil, leaves, or straw over the tubers when the plants begin to blossom. Adding mulch at this time is great for retaining moisture. For the best flavor, the potatoes can be harvested when they’re young, which is when the plant begins to flower. Mature potatoes are ready to harvest when the tops of the plants die down.

The potatoes should be left underground for a couple of weeks to make sure the skins have set. After that, they are now ready to be harvested for culinary dishes or be placed into storage.

One of the greatest joys of vegetable gardening for the gardener is harvesting the fruit of their labor. Because harvesting potatoes is especially fun for kids, many gardeners leave this part to the kids.

For more on growing potatoes check out How to Grow Potatoes the Easy Way. Interested in more articles on home gardening? Check out Growing Pole Beans in the Home Vegetable Garden.